I go to an estate sale once every two or three years, just
to remind me why I am not an estate sale person. On its face it seems to be an ideal
situation. A TWU professor lived in this
house for 60 years; seems that it would be a treasure trove of interesting and
useful items at a good price.
Most of North Denton apparently agrees and there I find the
first problem, parking. In this case,
the elevation is critical. The further I
travel down the street looking for a space, the tougher the climb will be back
up the hill to the house. I circle
around and go one block to the south to remain on the same elevation and actually
be a little closer. (Tactical Parking
should be my first e-book) The other thing
to prepare for, mentally, is the yahoo that parks illegally near the house and
leaves the flashers on. This could very
easily put me in a dark psychological place.
I cannot allow that to happen because I will need a good attitude for
the trials ahead.
As I approach the house the excitement grows. I observe all the smiling faces of people
walking to their cars, treasure in hand.
I see power tools, a folding workbench, and that gas can (which was the
real reason to show up), all wonderful finds.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this was the second problem. When you get to a 9:00am sale at 9:15, all
the really good deals are already gone.
However, I don’t know that yet and my confidence is high, I repeat,
confidence is high.
Now to get into the house; I understand that the sellers don’t
want me to steal late uncle Bob and aunt Jenny’s stuff but the tiny opening by
the backyard fence, which is the only hole in their defenses, is clogged with
people paying for their purchases. No
one in this line is concerned about me getting in and I am not willing to push
my way through. Eventually, I am able to
follow a large woman who apparently dressed for this predicament. She wore a bright purple spandex sausage
casing work out suit that allowed her to slide between people with very little
friction. I followed her and was inside
searching through items in no time.
Once inside another issue is navigation. There is just not much room in most houses
for passing traffic. My disposition and
size being what it is, I count it a miracle that I got out to pen these words
of warning to others. There is never anything in the bedrooms that are worth
traveling to, for it is a dangerous trip indeed. I was stuck in a bedroom for almost 30
minutes, as waves of people pushed me further from the door. How can this happen you say…bedrooms are
always full of purple spandex women and tiny 80 yr old ladies. Both of these types of sale goers have the
psyches of feeding sharks. An elderly
woman can dart in and out of crevasses and cover the whole house before I get
clear of the kitchen.
All of the good garage stuff and yard equipment were gone. Finally I have my two items, a book of poems (copyright
1923) and a cool little wooden cigar box.
I make my way out to the backyard checkout area to discover that the
line goes all the way to the back fence.
As I stand there, sweaty and annoyed, my cigar box is suddenly not that
cool and the binding on the book seems a little frayed. I set down both items and wait for a blocker
to exit. I spot a woman with a large
plastic purse that swings widely as she walks.
She is complaining loudly about the price of the dining room table as
she leaves. Everyone in line moves out
of our way as we leave.
As I walked back to my car I declared to myself that I only
wasted an hour, I would never do it again, and all would be right with the
world as soon as I got to Starbucks. It
was.
I’m Beef and these are my tips
